Frost Centre up for sale again

Each time I pass the Leslie Frost Centre on Highway 35 just south of Dorset I hear ghosts of the past.

They are ghost voices of Second World War veterans, laughing children and university students – all who came to the Centre to learn about forestry, the environment and nature in general.

The centre was built in the 1940s as Ontario’s primary forest ranger training school. It offered forestry training to soldiers returning from the war. The Ontario government closed it in 2004, supposedly to save $1.2 million in annual operating costs.

There were fears it would be sold to private enterprise, but instead was leased to Boshkung Lake cottager Al Aubrey, who proposed it as an educational summer camp, conference centre and location for environmental science seminars.

That effort did not work out and ended in 2010 and the Centre was put for sale.

The Centre’s dozen or so buildings have not been used since and are deteriorating. The government continues to pay to keep lights on, the grass cut and the snow ploughed.

Now there is news that it will try again to sell the Centre. Infrastructure Minister Laurie Scott’s office confirms that the government has been preparing the Centre for an open market sale. That preparation includes working on heritage studies to create a heritage easement as part of the sale.

A heritage easement commits a new owner to maintain the property at a certain preservation standard. The new owners can use the property as they please as long as ensuring its preservation.

What all that might mean for the Frost Centre remains to be seen. Could it be turned into a five-star resort with substantial marina facilities for small yachts while displaying historical photos and other artifacts to meet the easement’s heritage preservation requirements?

We’ll have to see the actual open market listing and the heritage easement to know exactly what the Frost Centre might look like under new owners, and how it would affect cottaging, camping and canoeing in the St. Nora Lake area.

The Frost Centre has 24,000 hectares of natural forest that includes hiking and ski trails. Whether parts of that would be included in the sale is unknown.

The Centre has a complicated history, which may or may not have interfered with the government’s earlier attempts to sell.

One hundred years ago, what was then the Ontario department of lands and forests decided to establish a ranger station on the west shore of St. Nora Lake.

Then in 1944 the Ontario government and the University of Toronto entered into a partnership to create a forestry technical school. The site chosen was the ranger station on St. Nora Lake where teachers and students would have access to the 24,000 hectares of government land and some forest area owned by the university.

The original agreement called for the government to pay the capital costs of construction, while the university would supply the teaching staff.

The purpose of the school was to train department of lands and forests employees, and potential employees, plus U of T forestry program students and forest industry employees from other parts of Canada.

Things changed over the years. The Centre became more of a natural resources centre where people came to learn more about nature and environmental issues. For many school children from the cities, a visit to the Frost Centre was their very first experience with being outdoors in a truly natural setting.

Eighty years ago, when Ontario was considering establishing the forestry school, Leslie Frost, then minister of mines and later premier, talked about the importance of education in conserving a healthy environment.

“The government believes that the best approach to the conservation and administration of our natural resources is to be found in education,” he said.

Let’s hope the folks preparing the new plan to sell the Frost Centre remember and believe in those words.

The best possible use of the Frost Centre remains as natural resource centre, where everyone can learn about nature and the need to behave differently if we are to save our planet.

We don’t need it to become yet another party place.

Before the sale, someone should pick up the beer cans and discarded cigarette packs lining the highway outside the place.

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A Sinkhole of Debt

It is remarkable how tiny pieces of news help us to see much larger, worrisome trends.

For instance, we now learn that the Natural Resources Ministry has been poking about, seeking a partner to help  maintain the Sherborne Road. The gravel road winds 12 kilometres from Highway 35 just south of Dorset through the bush to Sherborne Lake.

It is an access road for anglers, hunters, hikers, campers, snowmobilers, ATV riders and logging operators.

The ministry is asking various sources, including Algonquin Highlands Township, to take on the costs of maintaining the road. It says it can no longer afford the upkeep.

The good news here is that the Ontario government may be getting serious about its dire financial situation. It must be when it goes begging for help maintaining a 12-kilometre gravel road.

The bad news is that if the government cannot afford to maintain the road, nature will take it back, limiting access to a huge wilderness recreation area. Also, the Sherborne Road is a glimpse of the new trend in which citizens pay more to receive less.

The Sherborne Lake road story illustrates how badly Ontario is hurting from years of less than brilliant financial management. And, how the current government is relentless in squeezing taxpayers for more and more dollars to try drag itself out of a quicksand of debt.

Our electricity bills will increase at least an average $120 a year Jan. 1, on top of a series of stunning increases this year. Driving and vehicle licensing fees have increased and will increase more. We all will receive higher municipal tax bills in the spring because of more downloading of Ontario Provincial Police costs onto rural municipalities.

Then we have the service fees placed on top of service fees at Service Ontario outlets. And, the plans to make High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes.

Not to mention the new three-cents-a-litre provincial tax on beer, which took effect this month.

The government is desperate for more money to service its overwhelming debt. Ontario residents can expect this trend to continue, and likely worsen.  

Ontario’s debt has surpassed $300 billion. California, poster child for reckless government spending and poor financial management, has less than half the debt of Ontario.

Bonnie Lysyk, Ontario’s auditor general, expects the Ontario debt to reach $325 billion by 2017-18. To pay off that debt Ontario would have to collect $23,000 each from every woman, man and child in the province.

Ontario pays more than $11 billion a year in debt interest charges. That is more than the province spends on post secondary education for our children.

Credit raters have been following closely this plunge into deeper debt. Moody’s Investor Services and Standard and Poor’s have downgraded Ontario’s credit rating in recent months.

The province plans to spend another $130 billion on infrastructure over the next 10 years, which will increase the debt load even more. Much of the spending will be to alleviate the nightmare of Toronto-area transportation.

The government says going deeper into debt will spur economic growth, which will produce more dollars to pay off debt. We all hold our breath and hope this is true. Past performance leaves us skeptical.

Another reason for skepticism is the controversy surrounding the government’s selling off 60 per cent of Hydro One. It hopes to bring in $9 billion from the sale but in fact will realize only $3.5 to $5 billion after the utility’s debt is paid.

Some observers call the Hydro One offering a disaster in the making.

Stephen LeClair, the province’s financial accountability officer, says that selling the utility to private investors will cost the provincial treasury more than it takes in.

“The province’s net debt would initially be reduced, but will eventually be higher than it would have been without the sale,” he wrote in a critical review of the plan.

Deterioration of the Sherborne Lake access road would be a disappointment to users, but not a catastrophe. Real catastrophe will come to all of us if the government does not create a strong plan for reducing its debt.

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Skies Ablaze over Lake of Bays

Dorset community lighted the skies over southeast Lake of Bay for Canada Day weekend.

Every July, the Dorset hamlet community stages the fireworks display, which is attended by cottagers and vacationers for miles around. They come by boat from the far reaches of Lake of Bays and by road from many parts of the Haliburton and Muskoka lake country.

It’s got to be the best fireworks display put on anywhere by a small community. Dorset has 300 permanent residents.

It’s a summer scene at its best. The old bridge across the narrows is lined with spectators, as are the docks below. Red and green boat lights sparkle all around Big Trading Bay. The ice cream shop sells out most of its flavours in a couple of hours before the display.

Volunteers collect donations from the hundreds of spectators. The money is used for next year’s display and for community projects.

Walking through Dorset

Something cool has happened at Dorset since the weather got warmer. That's Dorset, Ontario (not England), the little village on the east side of Lake of Bays. It's well known by cottagers, boaters, snowmobilers and tourists passing through.

Folks there have come up with a walking tour that highlights the village's rich history, a lot of which is not known to the many people who visit it regularly.

Dorset began in the 1800s with a trading post established by Francis Harvey. Thus the names Trading Bay and Harvey Street. It boomed during the lumbering years, a highlight of which was the incredible Gilmour Tramway that carried logs from Dorset over the hills, down into Raven Lake, along the Black River, then into a small manmade canal carrying them into St. Nora Lake enroute to Trenton on Lake Ontario.

The walking tour starts at the little park on the inner bay, goes across the Highway 35 bridge, down Harvey Avenue, left at the Post Office, up the hill and down past the Dorset Garage and the big yellow house, then back down Main Street, ending at the museum.

The tour provides some interesting facts, such as: The little hill up past the Anglican church is known as Pill Hill because that's where the pharmacy used to be. The yellow house is Lockman House and was the original office of the Gilmour Lumber Company.

Another neat fact: In 1883, Dorset's first postmaster, Allen Phillips, used to canoe from Dorset to Baysville to pick up the mail. His salary was $50 a year.

The walk, and the brochure that goes with it, are free.

Neat stuff about one of the country's neatest places!

Congratulations to the folks who came up with the idea and who put it all together.